"Cookie Cutter" Pipe Band Dress

[OC Richard]

I've heard many people, especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland, bemoan "cookie cutter" pipe band dress: so many bands dressing alike, including wearing the same tartans.

Only a few years ago one could go to a major competition in Scotand and see every single band wearing black Glengarries, black Argyll jackets, black neckties, white shirts, black leather sporrans, gleaming white hose, black flashes, and black ghillies. Add to that black bagcovers. In many cases only the tartans set bands apart, or whether the band wore white drone cords, black cords, or two-colour black and white cords.

And often the tartans didn't set bands apart either, with so many wearing the same.

So, in a slow moment yesterday, in my Rain Man-like manner, I took out the programme of the 2004 World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow and actually made a count of the tartans worn. (Bands are required to state their tartan for some reason.)

There is certainly grounds for bemoaning Cookie Cutter dress.

Here are the most common tartans amongst the 206 bands:

23 Royal Stuart
20 MacLean of Duart
18 MacPherson (red)

10 Black Stuart
8 Fraser (red)
7 PCE Stuart

So one third of the bands were wearing only five different rather similar-looking red tartans.

There were six bands in MacKenzie and five in Gordon so the old military green/blue tartans made a bit of a show.

Flower Of Scotland, a new "trade" tartan, was worn by five bands making it by far the most popular new tartan.

As opposed to this, 56 tartans occur only once.

These included some interesting ones, ones I've never heard of, such as:

Princess Elizabeth
Princess Margaret Rose
Lady Borrowdales Gift
William Murdoch
Watsonian
Welsh Piping Society
Glengarry Highland Games
Bagad Breig

[Macman]

Richard, it would be interesting to see the trend over the last twenty years or so (not that I'm suggesting you do the same analysis for twenty years!).
Our band is never going to the Worlds. We have our own tartan designed for the band, but the rest of our kit is pretty much standard.

[macwilkin]

Lady Borrowdales [sic] Gift

http://freespace.virgin.net/john.hug...b/borodale.htm

http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tar....aspx?ref=2351

I've always admired this tartan, not only for its beauty, but for the history behind it, ever since I first saw it on the cover of Maggie Craig's Damned Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45.

T.

[BoldHighlander]

http://freespace.virgin.net/john.hug...b/borodale.htm

http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tar....aspx?ref=2351

I've always admired this tartan, not only for its beauty, but for the history behind it, ever since I first saw it on the cover of Maggie Craig's Damned Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45.

T.

That's a nice looking tartan Todd (I like the history behind it too)

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Could someone point out what band uniforms have to do with traditional Highland attire? Seems to me this should be in the Celtic Music forum with all the other piper/band stuff.

[OC Richard]

Could someone point out what band uniforms have to do with traditional Highland attire?

Surely you jest!

In what way is modern pipe band dress not traditional Highland dress?

Just about everything that modern pipe bands wear is on display in The Highlanders Of Scotland, thus dating to the 1860s, unless it be the specific design of a cap badge, or other minutiae.

Or does 150 years of use not make something "traditional"?

Modern pipe band dress consists of a Glengarry, Argyll jacket, kilt, sporran, solid coloured hose, and ghillies, all of which are seen in The Highlanders Of Scotland.

True that sporran designs have evolved, and that the modern "day", "evening", and "hunting" sporrans don't appear in The Highlanders Of Scotland. But all three are seen by the 1920's, giving them nearly a century of use.

And hose then didn't have thick turnovers, a rather small matter in the overall costume, and something a casual observer might not even notice.

Anyhow, back to band tartans, I just looked through the 2007 programme and there are fewer bands wearing Royal Stuart and more bands wearing bespoke/custom-made tartans.

Band tartans tend to change rather slowly though, because it's tremendously expensive for a band to change, and bands tend to wear the same tartan for many decades.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Surely you jest!

Not really. There is a world of difference between the band uniforms you are talking about and everyday civilian attire. It seems to me, since you are referencing The Highlanders of Scotland that this thread may more properly belong in "Historical Attire" or, since it is about band uniforms it might be better placed in the "Celtic Music" forum.

To my mind band uniforms (or costumes as you have characterized them) have nothing to do with present day traditional civilian attire. People don't dress like they are in a pipe band when attending a wedding, or going to dinner with their wife to cite but two examples. With very few exceptions (this thread being one of them) the topics covered on this forum generally concern themselves with what might best be termed "ordinary" Highland attire as opposed to military uniforms or band wear.

In no way do I wish to demean your obvious knowledge about piping, pipe music, pipe bands, or anything else of which you may have an informed opinion. Whether I agree or not with your views on the appropriateness of posting music-related threads on this particular forum is beside the point. I just don't see how a thread on "cookie cutter pipe bands" advances the discussion of present day Highland attire.

[EagleJCS]

Being in a pipe band, I can understand both points of view and I think I understand why OC started the thread here.The main differences between what I wear with the band and what I wear away from the band are not that great. (There's a change in kilt, hose and sporran, but the general appearance is the same).

Pipe bands - both competitive and non-competitive - are generally more conservative in their attire than the average Highland Games attendee, even the clan tent representatives, at least here in the US. Most competing pipe bands, at least in this part of the country, try to hew closer to the line of "traditional" attire, albeit in a 'uniform' - meaning being dressed the same - manner. You likely won't see band members wearing some of the combinations we've seen in pics in other threads. Non-competitive bands are another thing altogether, and may be more 'Brigadoon-ish' if wearing things out of context just because they saw it somewhere else.

That said, competing pipe bands I'm familiar with also tend to "follow the herd" in regards to some aspects (wearing white hose - which is now changing to other colors as the costs come down; an odd style of sporran - neither 'daywear' nor 'eveningwear'; black Argyle jackets at any time of day; and so on). Many bands will copy the look of a popular or visually different band to try to set themselves apart from their competitors. In that respect, bands are not quite conforming to what is considered 'traditional' attire.

Referencing an old book for one's modern sartorial cues is probably not in one's best interest, but it does give everyone a common frame of reference as a starting point for discussion. It may be more instructive to say: "Have a look at so-and-so on page x. The modern look is similar, but we use this or omit that instead."

[OC Richard]

To my mind band uniforms (or costumes as you have characterized them) have nothing to do with present day traditional civilian attire. People don't dress like they are in a pipe band when attending a wedding, or going to dinner with their wife to cite but two examples.

I beg to differ, as on these very forums there have been quite a large number of people posting photos of men in kilts attending weddings and other functions wearing black argyll jackets, white hose, ghillies, and the sorts of sporrans popular amongst pipe bands today (evening, day, and hunting).

Pop a glengarry on their head and a set of pipes in their hand and they could join in with most pipe bands and no one would notice. (And a few pipe bands do still wear balmorals, though they're considered somewhat old fashioned nowadays, due to their being so popular amongst pipe bands in the 1970s.)

Now, the question of whether this style of dress ought to be worn at weddings and other functions is another matter.

The question of what makes something "historical" as opposed to "traditional" is a difficult one to answer, but to me the difference between the two terms is continuity of use. So, the Great Kilt strikes me as historical, as it fell out of favour for nearly two centuries before undergoing a revival in recent times. Ghillie brogues, kilt jackets, Glengarries, and the rest of modern pipe band kit are traditional because there has been an unbroken lineage of use from their first appearance down to the present. They're all to be seen in The Highlanders of Scotland, in a vast number of Victorian and Edwardian photos, and in catalogues of Highland Dress makers througout the 1920s through the 1950s to today.

I didn't always realise this myself. When pipe bands and others began wearing black Argyll jackets around 1980 they struck me as novel. They combined the cut of a tweed Argyll day jacket and the fabric and buttons of a Prince Charlie. I thought of them as something new concocted to meet the needs of pipe bands, who were at that time abandoning the way they used to dress, which was either in full military style dress, civilian Evening Dress (complete with tartan hose and buckled shoes), or civilian Day Dress. At that time, in the late 1970's, many pipe bands, wanting something dressier than Day Dress but more practical than Evening Dress, were going to an odd concoction: Balmoral, Prince Charlie, long necktie, Evening sporran, bulky hand knit Aran hose, and ghillies. But by the mid-1980s the black Argyll swept away all in its path.

Well then I started seeing the occasional photo of a band or individual wearing black Argyll jackets in the 1930s etc. They appear in Highland Dress catalogues from the 1930s but only as dress for boys. A Highland Dress catalogue I have from the 1950s mentions them but does not list them. They appear to have no name for it but rather describe it.

Then jackets very much like it are to be seen in The Highlanders of Scotland, making me realise that they had always been around, but not very popular.

So even the black Argyll jacket, the universal modern pipe band look, goes back to the mid 19th century at least.

Anyhow, back to the subject of "cookie cutter" tartans, a comparison of the tartans worn at the 2007 and 2004 World Pipe Band Championships shows a huge increase in the use of bespoke/custom tartans (by bands or other institutions), trade tartans, and district tartans, and a decrease in tartans such as Royal Stuart.

Tartans appearing in 2007 which do not appear in 2004:

Monarch of the Glen
Scottish National
Scotland Forever
Spirit of Lanarkshire
Alvi
City of Rome
City of Brechin
Connemara
Niagra District
Ross and Cromarty
Roxburgh
Toronto Fire
Strathclyde Fire and Rescue
Drumalig (the bespoke tartan recently adopted by Field Marshal Montgomery, replacing Royal Stuart)
Cowal Highland Gathering
University of Strathclyde
Rangers (the football club I presume)
Grampain Police
Australian Highlanders

plus clan tartans such as Elliot, Fergusuon, Graham of Menteith, Gunn, Nicholson, and Scott.

I find it interesting the number of bands wearing modern trade etc tartans such as
Flower of Scotland
Holyrood
Millenium
Scotland 2000
Scotland the Brave
Spirit of Scotland
Scottish National
Scotland Forever
Monarch of the Glen

and the large number of district tartans.

[Lachlan09]

Humour an old Brit ! What's meant by cookie-cutter dress ?

Does it mean highly repetitive ?